The Buck Passes Flynn

by Gregory Mcdonald

  32

  “YOU beat me, Flynn. You got here first.”

  Flynn was leaning over Paul Sankey.

  “He’s as dead as a greenback.” Flynn straightened up and turned around, putting his hands in the pockets of his coat.

  Ducey Webb, hands in the deep pockets of her overcoat, was standing just this side of the living room-workroom door. Behind her, the front door of Sankey’s house was still open.

  “What good did it do to kill him?”

  “He did that himself,” said Flynn. “A very self-directed man, he was. A poor little schnook with a grievance, as a friend of mine would say.”

  “Oh. Coming up the alley, I heard the shot …”

  She did not appear disturbed by the sight of the suicide in the chair.

  “Ducey Webb,” Flynn said.

  She looked blankly at him.

  “You’re a gorgeous lass.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Beguilin’.”

  Her expression did not change.

  “Bright enough too, I hear. Tops in your class. Brilliance. Beauty. Craftiness. Uncanny ability to manipulate people. In eleven languages, each spoken perfectly. Demolition ability, of course. Also heavy knowledge of fashion, design, art, and literature. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

  Her expression still did not change.

  “The faculty at K. campus are proud of you, lass. Tell me, were you American originally?”

  “You’ve heard a lot, Flynn.”

  “I get around, I do. Somewhat. Deuce-Ace. Ducey Webb. The devil herself, spinnin’ her web. Lookin’ forward to a limited career, I suspect, due to two outstanding physical distinctions: rare beauty, and eyes that don’t match, however entrancin’ each of them is on its own.”

  “You never accepted my act, did you?”

  “I did not. Your disappearin’ off the road for half an hour that day you were following me in Texas had to mean somethin’, I still don’t know what. Then, you must realize by now, gel, a note of introduction in the President’s own hand was a bit much to believe, although providin’ no signature was a nice, convincin’ touch. A simple, ‘Hallo, Mister Flynn, what-are-you-doin’-with-yourself-this-fine-day?’ might have sufficed.”

  Her eyes were equally smoky.

  “That’s all right, lass. It was a young person’s mistake. Using an atomic cannon to kill a gnat is the common expression for it.”

  “Thanks for the lesson in Introductory Skullduggery,” she said.

  “That’s all right, lass. You’re only four years away from the old campus. There are lessons yet to be learned. But how did you match up all this currency floatin’ through the air with the peaceful man reclinin’ behind me with parts of his head missin’?”

  “I knew you had visited Paul Sankey before—here at his house. So I found out who he was. When the money began falling out of the sky all over the country this afternoon I knew there could be only one source of so much money.”

  “The Federal Reserve Bank itself.”

  “Yes.”

  “ ‘So much money,’ ” repeated Flynn. “So very much money. But, tell me, lassie: if you’re so brilliant, why have you connected up with the K. bunch, I want to know? Are you that set against peace and prosperity?”

  “You and I don’t happen to believe the same things, Flynn.”

  “Ah, lassie: I don’t believe anything at all. Well, I believe in breakfast and the occasional cup of tea.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Instead of believin’,” said Flynn, “I’m a great one for tryin’ to understand.”

  “Then you should be able to understand me… and K.”

  “I understand,” said Flynn. “A bit. But I don’t accept. You know, most of the people in the world want to make their way forward slowly, through education, enjoyin’ what health and peace and prosperity they can. Bombs goin’ off all sides of them have a way of bein’ distractin’. Certain things can be accomplished by war and violence, for sure. Even certain good things. But K. violates all sides of the world at once, to bang it into some shape thought desirable by only those few who run K.”

  “You have no idea who runs K.”

  “But I know your organization is as old as the hills, and, historically, it has devoted all its energies to diminishing the world and all the people in it as much as possible.”

  “It’s really very simple, in concept,” said Ducey Webb. “Hungry people are easier to govern.”

  “I know. Oh, Lord, I know. You might say K. has manifested itself to me more than once in my short years.”

  “I know all about that,” said Ducey Webb.

  “Do you?”

  “I know all about you.”

  “Wish I could say the same.”

  “You know, Flynn, K. had no hand in this.”

  “In what?”

  “In all this. The United States being flooded with its own currency.”

  “I know.”

  “We knew it was going on. I guess we knew about the incidents in East Frampton and Ada before you did.”

  “And you rushed right in to investigate?”

  “We didn’t understand it. Not at all.”

  “Neither did we,” said Flynn. “As is clear.”

  “It looked so much like something we at K. might be doing. We’ve tried something like this before, in Israel, in Chile … K. figured the quickest way to find out what was going on was to get someone to cover you.”

  “You wanted to have a good look at it to see if it was something you might want to take credit for?”

  Ducey Webb smiled. “We might yet.”

  “Do,” said Flynn. “Be my guest.”

  “It seems to have worked out The American dollar is ruined.”

  “Down, but not out,” said Flynn.

  “The capitalist system got so overblown it burst.”

  “Lots of people like it,” said Flynn. “The words free enterprise still have a nice ring to ’em.”

  “You’re overblown, too,” she said.

  “Without doubt. But was your education at K. campus good enough to answer me one small thing?”

  “Try me.”

  “Eighteen years ago at The Hague the American Ambassador gave a speech. Someone slipped two sentences into that speech. Apparently the speech, and those two sentences in particular, set the tenor of the Free World’s economy ever since. At least our silent friend, Paul Sankey, thought so. Do you know what those two sentences were?”

  Ducey Webb said, “‘The European Common Market will never attain an economic force equal to that of the United States of America. It is in full cognizance of this that the United States of America assures European Common Market nations of the full support of the United States of America.’ ”

  “You got it right the first time,” Flynn said. “Those two sentences were planted by an agent of K?”

  “Sure.”

  “Nice piece of work.”

  “I think so. Those sentences did more than anything else to put the Free World on the dollar standard. If nothing else, it caused the oil-producing nations to reject the concept of Special Drawing Rights and demand payment for oil in American dollars only.”

  Flynn looked at Paul Sankey in the chair, the front of his head shot away.

  “As the supply of oil went down,” Ducey Webb said, “the supply of dollars went up. In a way, I guess, what happened today—money all over the streets—was inevitable.”

  Flynn thought of Marge and Sandy Fraiman, Joe Barker, Helen and Parnell Spaulding, Gabriel and Alida Sims, Ronald and Barbara Ellyn, Milton and Jackie Schlanger, Cindy Lownsberry, Major William Calder, General Seiler, Colonel Perham, Colonel Seely, Major Rosenstone, Lieutenant DuPont, Adele Hughes, Hulett Weed—all the ruined lives and careers: inevitable?

  “So K. can take credit for this anyway,” said Flynn. “Every logical system must have its axiom, true or false.”

  “What?”

  “Just rattlin’ on,” said Flynn.
“Just rattlin’ on.”

  With no change in facial expression, Ducey Webb drew a .45-caliber automatic from the pocket of her overcoat and aimed it at Flynn.

  “There you go again, lass,” chided Flynn. “Usin’ an atomic cannon to kill a gnat. That’s a hell of a big gun for a wee slip of a girl.”

  “Chauvinist.”

  “Somehow I don’t think that point is worth debatin’ at this particular moment, I don’t.”

  “My training says to kill you. You know who I am.”

  “On the other hand, lass, the door behind you is open.”

  “Why wouldn’t I shoot you?”

  “Well, it’s a short life, at best….”

  Ducey Webb said, “Somehow I get the feeling I’m making a mistake.”

  “I have a riddle for you, lass. How can a man shoot himself in the head without a gun?”

  Her eyes flickered around the room.

  “Where is it?”

  “In my pocket, pointed between your matchless eyes.”

  Deuce-Ace said, “Oh.”

  N.N. 13 said, “Oh.”

  “All right.” She put the handgun back in her pocket. “There’s not much you can do about money falling from the sky at this point anyway.”

  “Go tell K. the sky is falling. Make sure you people take credit for it.”

  Ducey Webb said, “This time it’s a draw. Right?”

  Flynn said, “Somethin’ like that.”

  Keeping her eyes locked on Flynn’s, Ducey Webb backed slowly out of the room and out of the house.

  After she left, it took Flynn a moment to find Paul Sankey’s gun. It had fallen to the floor the other side of his chair.

  “No one believes a lie as well as a liar,” Flynn muttered to himself. “Isn’t that the truth?”

  33

  SITTING at his desk in the Oval Office, the President of the United States put down the telephone when Flynn entered. Through the windows behind him were the lights of Washington.

  He stood up and shook hands with Flynn.

  “It’s a great pleasure, seeing you come through that door, Mister Flynn … instead of coming at me, gun in hand, through a wall!”

  “Would you mind closing the drapes behind you, Mister President? It’s a simple precaution, you know, doesn’t cost a farthing….”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” The President pulled the drawstrings. “Funny no one has ever thought of that. Sit down, Mister Flynn, sit down. Did you ever see anything like this? Money falling from the sky—all over America.” The President laughed. “And who says I don’t keep my campaign promises?”

  Flynn laughed with the President.

  “Would you believe, Mister President, that drivin’ over here just now I saw money lying in the streets? Nobody’s even bothering to pick it up anymore.”

  “Too much of a good thing,” smiled the President. “Coals to Newcastle; greenbacks to Washington.” He sat down again at his desk. “I’m sure the street sweepers will have it cleared up before dawn.”

  “Will they?”

  “Sure. The street sweepers of Washington, D.C., are more sophisticated than nine-tenths of the Congress. At least they know shit when they see it.”

  “You seem in a rollicking mood, Mister President.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? I wish all crises were as happily resolved as this can be. So the country went on a binge for the weekend. They’re entitled. Now that I’ve got you here, tell me who, what is the source of all this money?”

  “A poor little schnook with a grievance. A disgruntled clerk at the Federal Reserve. An economist willing to destroy the economy to make his own predictions some true. An insanely grief-stricken man whose wife and daughters were killed in a tragic accident a few years ago.”

  “All one in the same?”

  “All one in the same.”

  “Has someone put him in a straitjacket?”

  “He gave himself an inexpensive lobotomy,” Flynn said. “With a handgun. A little more than an hour ago.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “He was the man in charge of incinerating the used money at the Federal Reserve. He built a false bottom in the incinerator.”

  “Oh. I’m surprised no one ever thought of that before.”

  “It’s not quite as simple as all that. All the devices set up to guarantee that the used money was being destroyed properly he also had to circumvent. I’d guess he’d been given too much of the new system to design himself.”

  “He must have been a clever person.”

  “Just got mixed up between his enemies and his friends,” said Flynn. “I’ve known it to happen before.”

  “Is that the whole story?” asked the President. “Is that all there is to it?”

  Flynn hesitated. “Yes.” He would make his full report to N.N. Zero later. It was difficult enough, traditionally, getting presidents of the United States to grasp the concept of N.N. Getting them to understand K. would be impossible. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I consider it a great stroke of good luck.”

  “You do?”

  “Indeed I do.” The President was doodling on his desk pad. “I’ve been being told now for a long time, by my advisers, that we have to devaluate. In fact, the dollar is worth only ten or twenty cents now, and the whole world knows it. However, it’s an admission we’ve been unwilling to make. This gives us the perfect excuse. We have an awful lot of dollars out there in the world beyond our borders.”

  “More than half a trillion dollars,” said Flynn. “Whatever that means.”

  “Whatever that means,” agreed the President. “So much it’s really unthinkable. And the cheaper the dollar’s been getting abroad, the cheaper oil has been getting for everybody else, and the more expensive it’s been getting for us. This thing had to smash up sometime.”

  Inevitable.

  “We have lots of options,” said the President. “And, thanks to you, we’ve had the time to implement them. That thirty-six hours warning you gave us makes all the difference.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Monday morning, everyone in this country takes whatever Old Dollars—greenbacks—to the banks and gets so many New Dollars—bluebacks—in exchange. We haven’t figured out yet whether they get either one or two New Dollars for ten Old Dollars. The damage hasn’t been completely assessed yet. Members of the Cabinet are about to come in and so advise me. Prices—prices of everything from gold to common stock to services and bread—will fall accordingly, within hours. Monday noon, for example, your wife will be able to buy a loaf of bread for a dollar and a half, old currency, or fifteen cents, new currency. Soon, as a Chinese philosopher might say, there will be no more Old Dollars—those which currently are out blowing around the streets—in circulation.”

  “I see,” said Flynn.

  “Now, you see, thanks to our crazy friend in the Federal Reserve Bank, everyone knows the dollar isn’t worth anything.”

  “I’m beginning to think he wasn’t so crazy.”

  “What was his name, anyway?”

  “Paul Sankey.”

  “Thank ye, Paul Sankey. It was an insane thing to do, Mister Flynn. But it’s an ill wind, et cetera.”

  “He said he was doing it only to reveal the truth.”

  “Or, another option is to do away with the cash-money, currency system altogether.”

  “Did I hear you?”

  “Right. One of our banks in particular—actually, it’s Citicorp—has been setting itself up for years to shift us completely to a credit system. No cash in circulation at all.”

  “No cash money?”

  “None. Your income is paid directly into the bank. You have credit for whatever additional savings you have. You are given something like a credit card, identified by your Social Security number, which is also your income-tax identification number. You carry this around with you. For everything you have to pay—highway tolls, lunch, groceries, even a house—you simply present your card and things are charged
up accordingly.”

  “And tell me,” asked Flynn, “what does that leave you to give the odd beggar in the street?”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” said the President. “For one thing, it would make the collection of taxes a great deal easier.”

  “We’d all like that,” said Flynn. “Wouldn’t we?”

  “Another great thing about all this,” said the President, doodling, “besides bankrupting organized crime, is that we jerk the magic carpet out from under all foreigners—particularly the oil-producing nations—who are holding American Old Dollars over our heads.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Flynn.

  “Accepting payment for oil in nothing but American dollars has bankrupted us, you might say. So they’re going to get ten cents back on their dollars. Surprise, surprise! That will teach ’em for buying six out of every ten United States Treasury bills we’ve issued the last few years.”

  “I should think so. Indeed, yes.”

  “As of this moment, the Free World is off the dollar standard,” said the President of the United States. “The world can use gold, spices, oil, toothpicks, S.D.R.’s, whatever, I don’t care. But, as of this moment, the international foolishness about the dollar has stopped.”

  “ ‘Thank ye, Paul Sankey,’ ” repeated Flynn. “But, surely, Mister President, the inside of this cloud isn’t solid silver, is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it is a crisis, isn’t it?”

  “A manageable crisis, Mister Flynn. A manageable crisis. Under de Gaulle, the French devaluated sharply to a New Franc. France’s economy has been much stronger ever since, as a result. Devaluation gives the American economy a whole new life.”

  In his mind, Flynn saw the scrub pine blowing down the empty main street of Ada, Texas. What had he been thinking then? What he was being told: Satan walked the land. There had been an earthquake. Banks had extended too much credit to the ranchers. There was no oil under the land worth thinking about….

  And he thought of the Las Vegas comic Jimmy Silverstein: … here we all are in this big sandbox called Las Vegas, playing with money … because it isn’t real anymore!

  … and of sitting through the night in a rowboat on a lake, surrounded by hell’s fires, George Udine saying: I make money because other people believe in it. I collect garbage because pigs want to eat it….